Monthly Archives: May, 2012

It has been a long time coming, but it appears, finally, that India will have new National Telecom Policy. Unless the hesitance to take decisions which is an after-effect of the 2G crisis, stalls the process again. LIRNEasia was among those who made comments. Among other things, we’d be interested in whether our comments had […]

The acquisition of Skype by Microsoft was a big story. So was Nokia’s tie-up with Microsoft. But now comes the question of how to realize the synergies. Good piece in the NYT. Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia, a maker of Windows Phones, told an audience at a recent conference that “the feedback from […]

The short answer is that India has done quite well without extensive tariff regulation and should continue the policy of forbearance. But the students at the National Law School of India University wanted to know more, so this is what they got.

One hopes that the new law takes into account all the lessons we have learned in telecom reform in Asia in the past few decades. According to Nomura, a new telecom law, which could allow for more licenses (up to 5) and direct or indirect foreign operator participation, is currently in final stages of drafting.The […]

Patrick Gannon (President & CEO, Board Director at OASIS), in an email, “You provide some very interesting information on the open source Sahana effort and examples of using citizen volunteers for disaster situation reporting. The issue is being highlighted in the 2012 CAP workshop FINAL REPORT.” Get more details on the voice-enabled alerting and situational […]

The oldest Department of Mass Communication in Sri Lanka (University of Kelaniya) is running a national conference on the future of media studies in Sri Lanka. I know this from the newspapers. I cannot provide links to any information on the event because none seems to exist, including information on the Department. However, they had […]

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology in association with the Centre for Internet and Society (IJLT-CIS) , Bangalore is organising the 3rd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The lecture series will be spread out over the course of the year and will include eminent speakers who will […]

How can peer review be effective when the underlying data cannot be shared? When scientists publish their research, they also make the underlying data available so the results can be verified by other scientists. At least that is how the system is supposed to work. But lately social scientists have come up against an exception […]

One thing we know about “big data” in developing countries is that the only data stream that covers the poor is that which is generated by the mobile operators. Here is an account of an interesting application of mobile big data: There’s a vast market of consumers in countries like Brazil, China, India, and the […]

More than 40,000 ultra-orthodox Jewish males had attended a rally to discuss the evils of the Internet while the women (who are segregated) watched from homes, according to the NYT. What I find interesting is the use of ICTs to discuss the evils of ICTs. The Amish who keep the telephones in a separate shack […]

LIRNEasia has been working on making agriculture markets more efficient since 2007. Here, in a discussion of decelerating growth in India, is a justification for our focus and our intention to do more work in agriculture. Agriculture employs about half of India’s work force, for example, yet the agricultural revolution that flourished in the 1970s […]

LIRNEasia conducts large-sample surveys. We explain that they are scientific surveys because random sampling is used. Sometimes we don’t emphasize it enough. But apparently we should. A US Representative has exhibited his ignorance by announcing that random is not scientific. “This is a program that intrudes on people’s lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency […]

A story on fines imposed on Etisalat’s Nigerian affiliate describes its international reach (without mention of the Sri Lankan affiate): It is easy to see why the company continues to look outside its home market despite the risk of complications. Pressed by Dubai’s agile operator, du, Etisalat has seen eroding domestic profits and market share. […]

Senior Research Fellow Nuwan Waidyanatha recently completed an action research project on how local-language voice communication can be used in early warning and other disaster management tasks. A 10 mt video has just been released.

Our sister organization RIA has been pushing hard for lower termination rates in South Africa. Now in the context of a retail price war, a small operator has joined the call. This nicely refutes the claim that mobile termination rates have nothing to do with retail prices. In a move that will no doubt irk […]